| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 8/19/2009 3:50:59 AM | it astounds me how a thoroughbred's pencil-thin legs can support an 1100 lb body moving at 40 mph. and it really upsets me when they can't.
indigo buntings appear a brilliant azure shade, while their feathers are actually black.
jewelweed, or spotted touch-me-not will frequently grow next to poison ivy. if you break open the stem of the jewelweed, you get a clear, sticky liquid that actually soothes the rash caused by poison ivy. if i see jewelweed, i always scout out the poison ivy that inevitably grows nearby. it kind of gives you a warning.
that's all i've got for now. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 8/20/2009 12:06:30 AM | many...I recently discovered 'shy plants' ..I forget their real name, in Hawaii..when you touch them , they close up....slightest touch. I amused myself for 20 minutes with that, lol. But then, I amused myself for about 10 minutes putting my finger in the goldfish pond =)
Also that the act of observation alters the quantum state of wave particles. I've been recently reading more on neuroplasticity and how it relates to phantom limbs...that is fascinating stuff. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 8/20/2009 1:03:10 AM | Living on the ocean almost made me forget about it - familiarity breeds contempt!
The middle of the ocean, with no lights except the ones in the sky is one place to really see the sky in all its splendor. The truly fascinating thing to me is watching the entire sky slowly rotating around. You can even make a reasonable guess at what time it is by how those heavenly bodies move.
Below the water is pretty neat too. Tens of millions of organisms in a teaspoonful of seawater. With the light in just the direction, you can watch hundreds of tiny creatures drifting by. Food for some of the leviathons of the sea. From huge blue whales dwarfing a small boat to not-quite-so-huge peaceful dappled whale sharks that I've had swim as close a 3 feet to me. Just walking down a dock the other day, I was fascinated by the life underwater. Not a square inch of any surface without life upon it.
And I suppose another miracle of the sea is how it manages to absorb all the garbage that must have been thrown into it over the centuries, yet still survive. Some places I've been are showing the stress though. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 8/30/2009 5:59:28 PM | The metamophasis from caterpillar to butterfly.
I'm amazed to watch the time-lapse photography on the Discovery channel that shows the liquification of the caterpillar's body inside the cocoon, and the emergence of a butterfly that bears no resemblance to it's previous state of being. The butterfly is completely reassembled from liquid inside the crysalis.
It's been transformed in every way, no longer a leaf-eating form that crawled amongst plants , but a form where it now drinks nectar and has mastered flight, never again to crawl along the ground...... | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 9/3/2009 4:44:24 AM | What occurs in science and nature that blows your mind?...
That at very low temperature, magnets can counteract gravity.
That maggots can eat away necrotic (dead) flesh but not eat live flesh, making them incredibly powerful healing treatments.
That we can now make lattices that can allow whole tissues to rebuild themselves naturally.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
That electrons and photons can act as both waves and particles.
Relativity, that everything seems relative to each observer.
That spider's webs are stronger than steel.
That ants will overpower termite colonies and eat the termites, but will move on to another termite colony, before they've consumed the whole colony. and will leave enough termites left to rebuild the colony before they come back for more.
I'm blown away by lots of science and nature. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 9/4/2009 4:23:14 PM | I've got another one: Water!
Think about all the amazing qualities of water. It gives us with life. We can go something like three weeks without food but have a tough time going three days without water. With enough of it, and given enough time, it can carve its way through rock. It can mold landscapes.
Most things contract when frozen. Water expands. It can pry rocks apart and, in the spring, its movement can eradicate docks from the sea/lakeshore. And one of the most amazing sounds I've ever heard was the tinkling noise of ice as a thawing slab of it slowly climbed onto the beach.
It moderates our climate beautifully. It absorbs heat in the south and let's it out in the north. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 9/10/2009 7:05:52 PM | I wonder if one day we'll be able to instruct liquid. I wonder how we could apply that manipulation of nature in order to benefit the world. 23
With the ability to instruct liquid mankind will quickly invent the waterup where spectacles like the Niagara Ups will attract visitors in their millions. The oceans would be a vast hydroelectric reservoir.
Weather phenomenons such as the colurful rainsquare could be produced in purple only when the sun is shining in the right place. For this triangular raindrops would have to be manipulated.
Similarly completely horizontal grooves could be cut on the ocean surface to allow ocean going railways to cross them at high speed. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 9/11/2009 4:02:17 PM | Clouds get in my eyes and spirit. I've seen sunsets that brought tears of joy. I've seen circular rainbows while in the mists of cloudbase and flying above them in powered aircraft. I love mammatus, altocummulus and the thousands of variations.
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/gallery/
The "ice cream cone" rainbow is another phenomenon that not nearly enough have witnessed. It only takes being in the middle of a lake with the sun shining to your back in the middle of a shower at water level. The semicircle is there till the light hits the water then goes into straight line cone shape.
Ditto on dolphins in phosphorescence...
Ball lightning floating in one window and out the other...very slowly. Saw this in 1985. crackling, fizzing, wobbling. Of course it was a haunted house as well. Love those gentle spirits that move things and make noises in the night.
Balls of light and sound that made subtle buzzing noises and rose off into space. (swamp gas?)
As for manipulating water...Masaru Emoto has some interesting woo-woo on that subject. I know folks who swear by it, but have not personally witnessed it like the previous phenomenon. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 10/16/2009 12:57:41 AM | | Saturn's rings, lightning on Jupiter, coronal mass ejections, starquakes on neutron stars, pulsars, blue sprites (a form of lightning that shoots 30 miles up out of the tops of thunderstorms), exo-solar planets. And the best is yet to come. The first evidence of extra-terrestrial life will not come from space probes to Mars or Europa or Titan, but from telescopes analyzing the atmospheres of exo-solar planets. How will this happen? By detecting a watery planet with a substantial amount of oxygen in its atmosphere. Oxygen is a very reactive chemical, and unless continuously replentished, would react out of a planet's atmosphere in just a few thousand years. So finding a planet having a significant amount of oxygen is strong evidence for photosynthesis, and therefore plant life. This discovery will be made in our lifetime. When this happens, I don't know which will be more amazing, the fact that it exists, or that we can detect and explain it. | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 10/24/2009 4:54:30 PM | The Northern Lights ….ahhhhh dancing lights in a star filled sky.
The Human Spirit …. What an inspiration to us ALL
Love …. Ooh sweet love
Music …. Universal language
All of Nature …. Incredibly beautiful and so complex, fascinating and “most amazing” in so many ways.
Ps: a note for the moving carpet …. There is an inexpensive material its like rubbermatting, usually used as shelf liner. I’m sure if you laid some of it between the carpets …it might stop the top carpet from slipping. There is also 2 sided tape out there …
Peace & Sharing ....the FairyHealer | |
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| What are the most amazing 'properties' you have ever seen in science and nature?
Posted: 10/24/2009 8:12:41 PM | The Northern Lights ….ahhhhh dancing lights in a star filled sky.
Except...when they interrupt a perfectly good, clear and moonless sky. Then they have an annoying habit of washing out "faint fuzzies." Just an astronomer's perspective. 
Actually, someone mentioned evolution...
How about the interconnectedness and interdependencies developed by species over the millions of years of life on this planet!? The biosphere is a marvel for which we have only just scratched the very surface of understanding. | |
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